Spooky Season 2025

Welcome to our Spooky Season 2025 hub! This will be my 5th year of doing something fall or Halloween themed everyday of October, and my second year of Spooky Season as a full-time RVer. And this year, the Nelsons are going West! We’ll be in the southwest during October and are looking forward to experiencing the season in a new area. This page will host links to blog posts to inspire your own spooky adventuring, as well as my daily journal for the season- so keep checking back!

Spooky-Themed Blog Posts

2025 Spooky Season Daily Blog

October 31

Happy Halloween! We decided to go out for Halloween and chose a winery in Roswell that was advertising their Boo-ze lounge. Unfortunately, it was kind of a bust. They were decorated great for Halloween and the staff was dressed up, but even though they’re a full bar and restaurant there was almost no one else there. The food and drinks were good, but it just wasn’t the atmosphere we were expecting.

October 28

Tuesday was our main day exploring Roswell, New Mexico. We visited the International UFO Museum and Research Center, Roswell UFO Spacewalk, and ate at the UFO-shaped McDonald’s. As exciting as Roswell seems, there’s not actually much to do, but we still enjoyed just seeing aliens everywhere around town.

October 25

Saturday was our main activity day in Alamogordo. Our first stop was the Museum of Space History. Highlights included the grave of Ham, the first astronaut chimp, a collection of objects that have gone to space, a collection of sci-fi film & movie props and costumes, and the Daisy Decelerator, an air-powered sled track used for testing both for space & for helping test early seatbelts.

Next, we visited the atari landfill. Back in the 1980s, Atari had a bunch of unsold video games (mostly that E.T. one everyone hated), and they literally dumped truckloads of them in a landfill here. For years people thought it was just an urban legend, but in 2014 they actually dug it up and found the games during the filming of a documentary. We first saw some of the games in the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan earlier this year.

After the landfill, we drove over to the town of Cloudcroft to hike some Forest Service trails. The main trail takes you to a historic wooden train trestle, which was pretty cool.

Our final activity of the day was the Tularosa Basin History Museum’s Night at the Museum event. We got ice-cream, did a scavenger hunt, and even met a volunteer who had been at the dig site for the Atari excavation!

October 24

Friday evening we went to see Little Shop of Horror at the local theatre. I’ve never actually seen the full play (or movie), so it was fun. It was the quality you’d expect from a community theatre, but it was really fun and I appreciate everyone’s hard work. Before the show, we also stopped at 575 Brewing for a flight and a pizza from the food truck (we almost were late to the show waiting on the pizza, though!).

October 23

On Thursday while doing errands I decided to stop and check out Spirit Halloween. I love the subway display, and I want to recreate this doll candelabra when we’re back in a house someday.

The Spirit Halloween in Alamogordo is in the mall, which is half dead, but also still half alive. Some areas were being used as community spaces, and we stumbled across a pumpkin decorating contest we could vote in!

October 22

Today was not spooky, but it was otherworldly. We were staying near White Sands National Park, which unfortunately was closed because of the government shutdown… until they got some temporary funding/volunteers to open for just a few days. We had so much fun trying sand sledding (even when it didn’t go great), and the landscape definitely felt like being on another planet.

October 21

Today wasn’t really spooky, but it was quirky! We visited McGinn’s Pistachioland in Alamogordo, New Mexico- home to the world’s largest pistachio! We went all in on the experience and had a great time. We started off with a tram tour through the orchard, which was short but informative with a great guide. Then we did some shopping (for us & for Christmas gifts), did a free wine tasting, took photos with the pistachio, and then ended with pistachio ice-cream.

October 19 & 20

We’re skipping ahead a little, since we’ve been having a kind of lame spooky season. It’s just been a busy time of life. But let’s do another movie update.

First up this week, I watched The Wicker Man (1973). I’ve seen the Nic Cage version a couple times, but hadn’t watched the original before.

Some thoughts as I watched:

• I didn’t know it’s basically a musical, but I’m kind of obsessed with the soundtrack, so that’s cool
• it’s interesting seeing the differences between the 2 versions, especially the island of all women vs. a mixed village
• how many times do they need to explain to this dude they’re just not Christians?
• there’s a bit too much exposition from the Lord at the end
• I definitely see how this inspired Midsommar
• honestly, the ending’s more satisfying in the Nic Cage version when it’s all women burning the man/patriarchy, but it’s still a great final shot

Next up, continuing in the folk horror/witchcraft theme, I watched Suspiria (1977). Honestly, I had trouble following what was going on for the first hour of this movie, but I don’t think plot is really the point of it.

Sure was pretty though.

Then I decided to watch the 2018 Suspiria remake, thinking maybe it would explain things better. But, no, it was also hard to follow, but still great atmosphere and cinematography again.

October 18

I’m gonna skip right over the 16th and 17th because those were a chore day and travel day. On Saturday, the 18th, we were in Socorro, New Mexico. We started the day at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. We had met some of the staff from their Friends group at Pollinator Palooza in Santa Fe, and they told us that despite the shut down the desert arboretum and the main driving tour roads were open, so we wanted to check it out.

Next up, was Fort Craig Historic Site, which was an 1850s US fort. It was closed because of the shut down, but the host was still on site and let us and another couple check it out. There are ruins of many buildings from the fort, and it was a lot bigger than we expected going in.

Our final, and spookiest, stops of the day were two sites related to the 1964 Socorro UFO sighting. Police officer Lonnie Zamora said he saw two people standing next to a shiny object, that he later saw rise into the air in a blue and orange flame. There are two sites to visit in Socorro related to this, a mural commemorating the event and the actual landing site in the desert nearby.

October 14 & 15

These two days weren’t very spooky, so I figured I’d catch you up on some Spooky Season viewing. Over the last week I rewatched all of the Halloween episodes of Sabrina the Teenage Witch (and then some regular episodes because it’s just such a good show). Here’s my ranking of Halloween episodes:

• #6: S05E06 The Halloween Scene
• #5: S04E06 Episode LXXXI: The Phantom Menace
• #4: S03E06 Good Will Haunting
• #3: S02E07: A River of Candy Corn Runs Through It
• #2: S01E05 A Halloween Story
• #1: S06E04 Murder on the Halloween Express

Then this week I decided is Werewolf Week. I started with the very classic An American Werewolf in London, which really holds up for its age and definitely deserves to be a classic. The practical effects are great and it’s pretty funny.

Next up was Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed. The first Ginger Snaps is one of my favorite movies, but I had never seen any of the sequels until now. This one focuses mostly on Brigitte, and I ended up really liking it! I was nervous, since sequels don’t always live up to the originals, but this one had very similar vibes to the first. It was kind of like a spooky version of Girl Interrupted and I enjoyed getting to know Brigitte better in this one. I’m not sure yet if I’ll watch the prequel or not.

Then I watched WolfCop, which is absolutely bonkers. There are so many scenes and lines that are completely wild, but there is a killer soundtrack! It definitely fell into the category of so bad it’s good, for me at least, and I’ll probably rewatch it someday with Josh.

October 13

Instead of Spooky Season, today we celebrated Indigenous People’s Day! We started the day with a coffee meeting with a soon-to-be new chapter leader for Wild Ones, then headed to downtown Santa Fe for the Honoring Native Nations Powwow on the Plaza.

I don’t have pictures of the dancers, since you’re not supposed to take any without asking permission, but I did snap a few of the massive crowds there. It was hard to see much, since there were so many people watching, but we did get a decent spot for the Parade of Nations, which was really cool to see the variety of regalia.

We ended the night watching The Goonies (for my first time) in honor of screenwriter Chris Columbus. It’s definitely a fun movie, and I totally get why people who watch it as kids treasure it so much.

October 12

Today we spent the day visiting ABQ Bio Park in Albuquerque, which includes a zoo, aquarium, and botanic garden. Even though it’s not inherently a spooky season activity, there were plenty of touches of fall to be found! The zoo and botanic garden both had fall displays and photo ops around the grounds, besides the fall colors of some of the plants. Botanic gardens and arboretums and are always one of my favorite places to visit in fall, since most do some kind of seasonal display.

Besides the plants, the botanic garden is also home to a “Bugarium,” which was home to some spooky creepy crawlies, like these tarantulas. But even better, on our drive home we saw multiple tarantulas crossing the road and were able to stop to get a better look at one- that’s the one in the third photo below!

October 11

The main reason we came to this part of New Mexico is to visit Los Alamos and other Manhattan Project related sites. Last year we visited Oak Ridge, Tennessee because I had read a few books about the Secret City and have been fascinated by the history. We didn’t get lucky with the lottery for tour tickets at the annual Los Alamos National Laboratory behind the fence tour, but still wanted to visit the other public sites.

We started out at the Project Main Gate, then explored the Bradbury Science Museum, which is owned by the National Lab. Next, we went over to the Los Alamos History Museum which includes exhibits in the former Ranch School as well as one of the historic Bathtub Row Houses. We walked around the area to see some of the other buildings, including Oppenheimer’s house. Because of the government shutdown, the NPS visitor center was closed, but we were able to get stamps and unigrids at the city visitor center.

This time of year I’m always on the lookout for little bits of fall and Halloween, and in Los Alamos we found two. The city was having a scarecrow competition, with scarecrows up and down the main street. Then at the Los Alamos Nature Center, we found some of the animal tanks decorated for the season!

October 10

Today wasn’t super fall or Halloween-y again, but we still had a fun day. We attended Pollinator Palooza at the Institute for Applied Ecology. We listed to a bunch of speakers talk about pollinators and native plants in New Mexico, which was especially interesting since it’s well outside our Midwest-based knowledge base. The event also included a dinner based around pollinators- fig salad in honor of fig wasps, tamales with squash in honor of squash bees, a mole chicken for the chocolate midge, etc.

October 9

Today was a Spooky Season-light day, since we stayed at the campground all day. But I did attempt to make pumpkin bread (I had some issues with the RV oven), and finished my Halloween puzzle!

October 8

Josh took off from work early today so we could go out adventuring. We hit up a few stops in Santa Fe, and of course, made sure there was some Spooky Season fun in there.

First up: Santa Fe Botanical Garden. This is a very nice, but small, botanic garden. We were able to get in for free because we have a reciprocal membership through the American Horticultural Society. We were a little out of season, but there were lots of cacti and even some fall color!

We had some time to fill between the Botanic Garden and our next activity, so we headed over to Fairview Cemetery. I didn’t have anything particular I wanted to see here, I had just seen in my research that there were some nice old headstones, so it seemed like a good option. We wandered around and I found some neat things. I’m always on the look out for tree stump tombstones, and found a couple here. A lot of people think they’re all Woodmen of the World graves, which is a misconception- but I found one here that actually is!

Our final activity was a tour and tasting at Tumbleroot Brewery & Distillery. We got our tour tickets on Groupon and it was a short and sweet tour- which was just fine with us, since we go to so many of these. Instead of a more formal tasting, since it was just us there, the bartender just gave us tastes of whatever we were curious about or she wanted us to try. We really liked most of their stuff, and left with a few things for ourselves & gifts.

October 7

Today we met Ethyl the Whale. Ethyl is made 82 foot long and is made from recycled plastic to highlight the problem of ocean pollution (oooh spoOoOoOoky). The artists behind Ethyl were originally commissioned by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where Ethyl first lived. Then she was purchased by Meow Wolf, who moved her to Santa Fe and paid for her to be installed at Santa Fe Community College.

After dinner, we continued Vampire Week by watching What We Do in the Shadows (2014). We’ve already seen the full TV series, so we were watching this a little out of order. We thought it was just as a good as the TV show, it really felt like just an extended episode. Sometimes when movies are made into shows the tone changes, but this felt exactly the same.

October 6

Today was one of those days where we never left the campground. RV life can look glamorous online and like it’s all fun and exploring, but some days you just need to work and do chores. So for Spooky Season I made sure we at least watched a horror movie. I didn’t get into horror movies until I was an adult, so my list of ones to watch is ever-growing. This year I decided to do something a little different and pick a theme for each week of October, so tonight we kicked off Vampire Week.

We watched Blade (1998), which is a movie where I knew some of the references and the character, but had never actually seen it. Blade stars Wesley Snipes as a half-vampire who’s also a vampire hunter. It’s based off the Marvel Comics character Blade, so in some ways is more of a superhero movie than a horror movie- and Snipes is great as a dark superhero. The special effects are so bad, but in a nostalgic way that I loved. Overall, it was a very ’90s movie and was pretty bonkers, but definitely fun and worth a watch.

October 5

Another early wakeup call… this time we woke up at 2am since we had 4am shuttle tickets to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. We got to the park just before the gates opened, then grabbed donuts before setting off to explore. The morning activities included a drone show, morning glow, dawn patrol, and then the weather was good for mass ascension!

We met up with Josh’s board member and her crew. She and her husband build balloons and he and one of their crew members would be flying today. Anyone is allowed to get up close and personal with the balloons, but it was very cool to hang out with a balloon crew and feel like an insider. The mass ascension is when nearly all of the balloons take off in flight over a couple hour window. We talk a lot about landscapes that feel other worldly, but being surrounded by hot air balloons inflating is a whole other kind of other worldly. It was completely surreal, not just the volume of balloons in the sky, but how close together they are while inflating and getting ready for takeoff.

After their balloon took off, Josh’s board member had to leave us to go chase it down. So we wandered the field a little more, but it wasn’t long until everyone had taken off. We stayed around for the start of the car show, and then headed back to our shuttle. We spent the rest of the day napping and relaxing.

We didn’t actually plan our trip to the area around the Balloon Fiesta, we planned it around some Manhattan Project events coming up, but we are so glad this happy accident occurred! The Balloon Fiesta is the Southwest’s most iconic fall event, so we’re glad we got to check if off our bucket list.

October 4

Today started with a 2:30am wake-up to beat traffic to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, but ended up with a change of plans. We were going to meet one of Josh’s board members from work there, but she had texted to let us know that the weather didn’t look good for mass ascension, and she ended up being right and they only had a static display. Since we had general admission tickets, we decided to wait until Sunday to go in hopes of better weather.

So, instead, we started off the day at El Rancho de las Golondrinas- a living history museum that focuses on Spanish Colonial New Mexico. This weekend was their fall harvest festival- perfect for spooky season! The museum itself was really interesting. We got to a lot of living history museum, but it’s usually German or Swiss settlers in the Midwest, so there was a lot of new things to see for us. I was also very excited to learn that the museum provided information for the original American Girl Josefina books, and sure enough in the back of the first book is a photo from El Rancho de las Golondrinas. I would have read that book as a kid in the ’90s, so it was so cool to get to visit in real life!

Last fall I wrote a blog post for Wild Ones about buffalo gourds, and at the rancho I finally saw one in person myself! This is a native plant that’s a relative of the modern farmed pumpkin. One of the other cool things about them is that they were originally the only food source for squash bees, which has since evolved to also feed from/pollinate agricultural squashes and gourds- a super rare adaptation, but a very important one for our ag system!

After the rancho, we decided to visit Walatowa Slot Canyon in Jimez Pueblo. This is a really cool red rock slot canyon on Tribal property. We had to pay for hiking permits in the visitor center, but it was definitely worth it. Besides being beautiful, there were very few people there and we had the slot canyon entirely to ourselves.

October 3

Today was a moving day for us, and a bit of a rough one too. We only had about 2 hours to drive between campgrounds, but our cat Betsey screamed the whole way. We arrived before the second campground’s 2pm checkout, so we had to wait 45 minutes for the people in our site to leave before setting up. We also planned the next morning to go to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta super early, so it all added up to a not very spooky day. We’ve been watching season 2 of Wednesday, though, so we at least got some spooky viewing in.

Josh’s college town, Normal, Illinois, even got a mention this season! If you want to know why it’s called Normal, check out my post on The Best 15 Things to Do in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. The Normal Police Department even got in on the Wednesday fun.

October 2

Because Grants was really just a filler stopover for us, we didn’t plan ahead for a lot of festive activities. But in the spirit of a daily log, I’ll share some of the non-seasonal things we do this month too. Grants sits on part of the original Route 66, so today we checked out their drive-through neon sign, which is pretty fun. I did also make potato soup today, so that’s fall-ish at least (I promise it tastes better than it looks, I’m just not good at food photos).

October 1

We’re spending a few nights in Grants, New Mexico between some of our longer stays, and decided to check out nearby El Malpais National Monument. Even though it was the first day of the government shutdown, the trails were still open. El Malpais is one of the National Monument sites that’s managed by both the NPS and BLM, and honestly, even just driving through the area would have been worth it.

We chose to hike the Lava Falls Trail in the NPS section of the monument. The volcanoes here were formed by Hawaiian-style eruptions, meaning non-explosive flows of gushing lava. As the lava cooled, it left behind an incredible variety of formations. The Lava Falls Trail itself is a one-mile loop marked by cairns that winds across the hardened lava. Walking it felt like stepping onto another planet and it’s a very weird landscape to experience- which definitely felt appropriate for spooky season!